Volunteer Program

Help us change lives through art.

Each year, hundreds of volunteers of all abilities inspire people to look at their world in new ways. When you contribute your time and skills to the Frist Art Museum, you not only support the arts in our community, but also get to meet interesting people (like you!).

The Frist Art Museum is certified in Excellence in Volunteer Engagement (EVE), which recognizes nonprofits with high-quality volunteer management practices.

To learn about volunteer opportunities, including those for individuals who require reasonable accommodations, please contact our Manager of Visitor Engagement at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 615.744.3329.

Won’t you consider becoming part of our team? CLICK HERE to learn more about our program.

Before submitting an application, please review the Frequently Asked Questions page to make sure our program is right for you. Please note that submitting an application does not guarantee your acceptance into the program. Volunteers will be selected based on availability, level of commitment, and the needs of the Frist Art Museum. All volunteers must pass a background check. If you are accepted into the program, you will be contacted prior to the next training date.

Questions? Contact our manager of visitor engagement at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or 615.744.3329.

Become a Teen Ambassador
Are you between the ages of 15–18 and interested in working in an artistic environment with peers and professional artists? TAAG (Teen Arts Action Group) is for you! Sign up to gain community service hours and leadership experience as a Teen Ambassador. As a Teen Ambassador, you will learn from Frist educators and mentors how to choose programming themes and serve as an exhibition juror. You will acquire promotional skills, connect with other artistic youth, and create work with some of today’s most innovative artists. Develop leadership and professional skills as you support the Frist’s Teen ARTlab series. To be considered for an ambassadorship, you must be able to devote four hours each month to TAAG assignments and attend two TAAG meetings each year (in May and September).

This unique opportunity is designed to give you access to the arts, along with increasing the access of others where you live! If you are not a Frist volunteer and are interested in this opportunity, complete the Volunteer Applicationand select "Teen Ambassador Project" under Assignment Preference.

If you are already a Frist volunteer, you may be able to serve on TAAG in addition to your regular duties. Contact your volunteer services manager for more details.

Volunteer Profiles

Azadeh NajafianOccupation
Former: High school teacher, college professor.
PhD in Persian literature

Questions:
1. Why did you want to volunteer at the Frist?
Since I remember, Art has been an inseparable part of my life. Born and raised in a historic city, Shiraz (Iran), I have learned that art is a way of living this life that gives depth and meaning to it. When we moved to Nashville I found the Frist as one of the active centers for arts in this city. It was an easy decision; I had to join them.

2. What has been your favorite exhibition so far?
It is not easy to pick one, but I think Phantom Bodies is one of my most favorite. The way that artists were looking through the human bodies and beyond them was fascinating. It was like being somewhere between nightmare and dream!

3. What does volunteering at the Frist mean to you?
It means being a part of a significant and high-level community of art-lovers.

4. What has been your favorite Frist volunteer moment so far?
Working with children, laughing with them and enjoying the moment with them in Family Free Day.

Questions:
1. Why did you want to volunteer at the Frist?
I have always loved art and been fascinated at the way artists see. Growing up in New York, I was fortunate to be surrounded by many different art museums that highlighted different schools and types of art. The first time I went to the Frist after moving to Nashville, I was completely captivated by the building and by the exhibits. Once I had a little more time to myself, I thought volunteering at the Frist would be a great way to feed my artistic soul and meet people from all over the world.

2. What has been your favorite exhibition so far?
They’re all pretty amazing and of course Bellissima is jaw dropping but my favorite so far is Inka Essenhigh: Between Worlds. I love the strangeness of her work and the peek she gives us into worlds that only exist in her imagination. So many of her pieces seem to change every time you look at them. Details jump out that you didn’t notice before; colors are highlighted that you didn’t see the last time you looked; you notice creatures hiding in the background that escaped your attention. Her work speaks to my love of all things strange and weird and otherworldly.

3. What does volunteering at the Frist mean to you?
It means I’m able to share my love of art with our visitors and help them experience the Frist in the best possible way. I want them to leave us already planning their next visit and impatient to tell all their friends what a special place the Frist is. And I get to work with really wonderful people who live and breathe the vision and mission of the Frist and who make all of our visitors feel like they have landed in the best place on earth!

4. What has been your favorite Frist Volunteer moment so far?
Well there are two that I have to mention. I was doing a shift as a visitor ambassador and a gentleman stopped to ask me where the Italian sports car exhibit was located. His friends who live in town told him they were on display and, as he was visiting from Italy, he was very excited. I was very confused as I thought if we had Italian sports cars in the building I surely would have noticed. I hated telling him that the Bellissima exhibit was still 6 months away but encouraged him to come back then if he could and he did! I was on-site the day he came back and he re-introduced himself to me and thanked me for making the exhibit sound so amazing that he had to come back to see it. That was wonderful!

The other was when a staff member from the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) in Washington, DC, visited ArtQuest and told us that she had never seen anything like it at any of the other museums she had visited and how it inspired her to investigate the possibility of doing something like it at NMAI that would incorporate Native American art and culture in a hands-on art setting like ours.

Since before we opened our doors in 2001, volunteers from throughout the Nashville community have been in an important part of helping us to fulfill the Frist Art Museum’s mission and vision.

In a typical year, nearly 400 volunteers provide more than 25,000 hours of service to the Frist Art Museum. Docents lead more than 15,000 visitors on tours, Visitor Services volunteers welcome over 200,000 visitors into our exhibition galleries, and ArtQuest volunteers assist over 110,000 children and families in the Martin ArtQuest Gallery.

Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Frist Art Museum is a 501(c)3 nonprofit art exhibition center dedicated to presenting and originating high-quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities. The Frist Art Museum offers the finest visual art from local, regional, national, and international sources in a program of changing exhibitions that inspire people through art to look at their world in new ways.